See Spot Run
by Master of Shiawase Punch
Summary: The Strawhat Crew is forced to care for Sanji after he is reduced to an infantile state by a freak accident. Summary is ew. Story isn’t AS cruddy. R&R.
1. CHAPTER 1: Plunge on in

**This is long, but you are required to read it unless you already know of my "policy" on reading this bunk. If you don't read, and you ask a question that's answered in this little intro, I will just type out Internet laughter. GAHAHAHAHAHA! That is said laughter. **

Howdy-ho, again! You venture to read another mishap, all-crap, Ken Tale? Well, okees. First thing, it's obviously One Piece based. And I hate lovey crap, so this story encompasses more than just love. This is a story embedded in naturalism and realism: in other words, I'm going for a pure third person omniscient story. You know ALL of their thoughts, or, most of the main characters' thoughts. They will be in-depth and analyzed on a fully human scale and line of thinking. I will attempt to relay thought processes and feelings of the characters in an all-human way. NO SUGAR COATING! Get over the fact that we all experience hormonal feelings, wanted or unwanted. Depart from your separation of guilty feelings and good thoughts, as I try to expound upon them all! All of the characters are IN CHARACTER. That means...concerning all of the characters...NO DAMN HOMOSEXUAL CONTENT WHATSOEVER. You want a freaking line-up of faggot characters? Go read Eerie Queerie. Or Legal Drug. Or watch Revolutionary Girl Utena. I'm almost sure Naruto is full of gay guys, so try that one. Or maybe I'm just a Naruto-hater. There you go. Not a homophobe, just pissed at how you blighters always have to add something gay into the mix when it's not present in the original...annoying.

With that said, this story also focuses on the development of the characters as they deal with different personalities and thought processes. They are supposedly plagued with thoughts that they consider as ailments. This happens to people, maybe not all of us, but some, as they worry about what others think and how to cope. There are also several other underlying plot themes. I won't go into them now, for after the last chapter is posted, I would like to see if anyone caught them. I hate it when people delve into writing and place one set theme on a story, so I'm introducing many, and seeing which ones YOU might find. You might catch some that I didn't intend!

I will be adding in pre-chapter commentaries. Sorry if you get annoyed. Not.

Any and all questions should be either added in your reviews or PM'd to me. I will be prompt in answering any and all said questions. Unless God needs my computer to check his G-mail. When reviewing, please do not type like an idiot. And don't flame me for not supporting homosexuality. You have no right to judge my viewpoints.

And as far as SanjixNami goes, in case you think this story is ALL ABOUT THAT: do I think "LYK OMGSH THERE LUV IS SO YAR!!11!111"? No; I do not have the driven spirit of a stupid sex-machine yaoi fangirl (although I must admit some of the mildly ecchi SaNa fanart out there is very good...). I just believe that their personalities go hand in hand. Blatantly obsessive with a lack of order, and blatantly ordered with a lack of obsession. That's Sanji and Nami, respectively: in terms of love/loving that is. I think it's the most perfect couple out there, and that is why it is the only one I support for any anime/manga. I don't think it's CUTE; I think it's pure and mature. Sanji willing to take all the baggage and brutish attitude Nami has developed from a difficult past...it's beautiful.

This is in line of thinking of their base personalities, BEFORE Nami-fanservice came into play. Remember that.

**Garlic press meets compass forever.** :)

Remember: read and review! R&R! LOLOLOLz.

And now, the bloody story. Gosh.

Chewing on video game controller cords,

---Ken

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**SEE SPOT RUN**

**CHAPTER 1: "PLUNGE ON IN; TRUTH'S A MOLDY PEACH AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG"**

"You're doing it again."

Nami had for the seventh time knocked Sanji out of a peaceful and highly pleasurable reverie that started every time she would place a segment of a tangerine into her mouth. She detected that something was different when he would stop counting out loud as she gently tossed the picked orange fruits into the wooden crate, and that he would take longer drags on his cigarette, but she hadn't connected it with her consumption of a tangerine every now and then. She only noticed that the quiet around her was abnormal, and that Sanji was replacing the cigarette in his mouth more frequently than usual.

"Oh, oh, so sorry, Miss Nami, really, I suppose I should be paying better attention," the blonde chef lied; he in truth was paying enough attention to the orange-haired navigator to observe her every little move. Nothing she did escaped his sight, hearing, or thought. He could have written volumes all about her and his feelings towards her, concerning everything. It couldn't be helped. And he was doing just fine, counting how many tangerines had entered the flimsy crate---was it finally 50?---until she just _had_ to peel one of them for herself, break the fruit into individual segments, and place them into her mouth with the most delicate finger movements he had ever seen, although he himself wondered if her actions only seemed as average as any to the average person. And he tried to continue counting, as the fortieth tangerine became a random fifteenth, sixteenth, twenty-ninth...stop. _God_, how he wanted to make love to her. He felt guilty the first time his mind's dialogue forced those words into existence, even more guilty as they were internally said over and over...and over. Until finally it became normal routine. Almost a goal. From Hell.

From under lazy eye lids he watched her chew the segments, sometimes hurriedly, other times appreciatively, as if judging the juice that had just engulfed her taste buds. A red-hot sensation coursed through his veins as Sanji imagined himself being allowed to feed her those tangerines, deriving pleasure from being sprayed by an accidental squirt of the acidic juice that so often results from biting into a segment, or from merely watching Nami cleaning up the excessive mess of juice from her moist lips with one sweep of her little tongue. He didn't find his daydreaming odd, at least, not when it was kept to himself. He took several drags in quick succession from his cigarette, wondering at how he could still manage to afford cigarette cartons.

"Shall I start over?"

Nami rolled her eyes and forcefully moved the crate towards her.

"If you aren't going to help me, you can just stop, okay? You belong in the kitchen anyway."

Sanji felt stunned at Nami's sudden and harsh words. She always allowed him to toddle along with her, whenever he wanted, wherever she was going, whatever she was doing, and never seemed to mind before. Sure, she liked to snap a lot, particularly at him when he fawned over her. But he always anticipated _that_...what was wrong now, he couldn't figure out.

"Uh, I...I just, wanted to help you..."

"Yeah, well, it's not helping when you lose track," she spat. "I need to get this done before the frost comes, and inventory is very important! You're more of a burden than anything." Always around her, always eyeing her from those deep blue eyes of his (only one of which could be seen due to his sloppy haircut): she felt bothered and uneasy. She felt perturbed around him anyway, his demeanor was unnerving. But recently she had been awaiting the moment he finally caused her to crack. Enjoying anticipating future events, much like how she predicted the weather, she often imagined what she would say in such situations as wild and creative as Sanji breaking out into an exceptionally mad tirade about his so-called 'un-confessed love' for her (yet, he proudly confessed it everyday...), or if he tried to kiss her. She supposed those weren't as wild and far-fetched as she thought originally, considering the chef's love-sick behaviors anyway... but 'back hand the fool and push him overboard' was usually the conclusion to her fantastical ventures, no matter what the circumstances. So she had decided.

"A burden," Sanji repeated, staring at Nami, now returned to her precious fruits, with questing eyes. He had been turned down and forcefully dominated by this woman before, _many_ times, too many to count, yet he knew that it was only backfiring, her denying him; he loved how she constantly played 'hard to get', and even if she played it over and over, he could always and forever come back for more. No 'Game Over' in his book. But never had he been referred to as a _burden_, and in that tone for that matter. _That_ tone that left him feeling unwanted and tossed aside like one of his many finished cigarettes, some of which came short of being thrown into the ocean and were now littering the deck near the railings. He wouldn't have that from Nami, no, not from her. "How am I a burden, Nami?"

Nami. No _Miss_ Nami? He always addressed her properly, what was his problem? His questioning voice caused a sickening feeling to run through her stomach, through her heart, and up into her throat. She often felt like this when confronted with something or someone whom she wanted to irately scream truths at, but held herself back, to the point where she felt that she couldn't successfully express herself otherwise. But Sanji was way past overdue to be chewed out, him _and_ that goofy smile of his, and all those falsehoods that he constantly would spit out about respecting women and feeling sympathy for them first and foremost. Lies. He'd have it.

"Well, for starters," she forcefully threw the current pick of the tangerines into the basket, causing the peeling to crack open against the others, "you're never focused around me when you claim to either help, or keep me _company_---"

"Never _focused?_ How---"

"I always get the feeling like I'm only being ogled at, up and down," she continued, flailing her right arm up and letting it fall heavily back down to her side.

"Oh, so _now_ you're accusing me of---"

"AND," she growled, pointing at his face, "you call yourself a gentleman when you're always smoking that God-damned cigarette around me? _Gentleman?!_ HA! Gentle, my rear end." She grabbed the broken tangerine from the basket and threw it as hard as she could at Sanji's chest. He clumsily caught it, wide-eyed and gawking at the words that still rung in his ears. "There. Now go off and _don't. Waste. IT_."

He had inwardly chuckled (despite having a vehement Nami in his presence) after hearing 'Gentle, my rear end', for whatever disgusting reason that jumped into his mind concerning the navigator, but the severity of the situation heightened so quickly that all former thought was forced out of his mind and was instead replaced with more pressing issues of abandonment and dislike. The universe exploded; the earth was on a crash course in an orbit of doom, or something dramatic like that; this wasn't Nami, no! It---it had to be some sort of imposter. No way in Hell was his petite orange-haired princess, his 'favorite little girl', treating him in this way. Inconceivable. She had never so much as raised her voice at him, _because _of him, and now she was angry with him. There was something wrong.

"N-Nami, how can you possibly be so harsh to me, why are you being this way?" he asked through shaky breaths. "You don't mean that, you positively can't mean---"

"I _said_ go away; and I intend that in any meaning that you can gather from it! I need to get this done and you're just irritating me, as usual." She didn't originally intend to add the last part in; the idea was to make him feel upset enough to leave, but Sanji's shift in composure told her that she had struck too strong of an emotional chord.

"_Irritating_ you! IRRITATING you?! I do _everything_ and _anything_ for you, Nami, and I'm '_irritating_' you?!" he snarled, mimicking her tone. She glared at him icily out of the corner of her eye as she continued to harvest the tangerines. "Is that how you truly feel about my behaviors towards you? I make you special food, special treats and drinks; I offer you services of any kind, I compliment you whenever I get the chance, put you before myself _always_." His entire infatuation-turned-love towards the girl now turning a cold shoulder to him felt fatally wounded. He couldn't think of anything else except how he had practically _slaved_ to try and meet her every need, want, and desire, all in desperate hopes of being loved back; he wanted, and personally felt that he _needed_, to do more, so much more, but knew that it wasn't appropriate and had accepted the fact that Nami would never go beyond just thanking him for his servile actions. But at some point he stopped caring about that. Simply being in her presence---receiving that sweet smile that drove him wild, 'accidentally' brushing his hand against hers while handing her a dinner plate, or (on the rare occasion of being close enough to her) merely _considering_ how to best steal a kiss---made his daily doting all worth while, even if the feelings were not returned. And now it was all summarized by one word: '_irritating_'. He stared incredulously at Nami, who continued picking fruit as if he wasn't there, wasn't talking at all. "_Talk_, Nami! I want you to be frank with me, honest! I don't want some chinsy lie to make me feel better."

Sanji was amazed when Nami burst into genuine laughter, disturbingly making him want to shake her until she stopped and, hopefully, cried, feeling sorry for laughing at him. She coughed once, twice, wiped her right eye with the back of her hand, careful not to rub in citrus juice.

"Honest with you, ay? As if I haven't _been_ honest! Yeah, yeah, go ahead and frown in disgust, or look at me with that look of disbelief. Why don't _you_ consider being honest once in while, hmm?"

Damn respect to Hell.

"You---ME BE HONEST?! You selfish, conniving, little brat! Why do you think I treat you the way I do?! FOR KICKS?! Hardly! You're the most high-maintenance, difficult, and hard-to-please woman I've ever met, yet I let---your---will---be---done. You're really just a snot-nosed wench and a---"

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW A PERVERT WHEN I SEE ONE?!" Nami screamed, turning brick red in the face and kicking the side of the crate. Her eyes were no longer smoldering, but white hot, her pupils retracting in the sun before its daily descent into some faraway place on the ocean. "That's all _you_ are! Not a gentleman! You call that '_honesty_'?! You're just a sexually-frustrated boy who tries desperately to get some!"

Sanji dug deep into one of his pants pockets and pulled out a cigarette, the last one. Have to make it last and truly count, he thought. He placed it to his lips, barely able to hold it in place he was shaking so hard from rage. The words hit against his eardrums and resounded continuously in his head. Nodding, he absentmindedly picked up the now-full basket of tangerines and snorted, the blast of air from his nostrils moving a couple of the hair strands that had fallen in front of his face.

"So, the truth comes out: I'm nothing more to you than a sex-addict who can't be taken seriously." He continued nodding, as if agreeing with everything he had just said, and immediately hated himself as he felt tears well up over his bottom eyelids. He tried blinking them away, but it only caused more to take their place. Surprisingly, even when he considered _himself_ and his obvious behavior, he had never really _cried_ over a girl. He had felt frustrated, betrayed, and abandoned, but had never cried about it. There was always another girl to take the place of the one lost. But...

'_There is no replacement for Nami. Nami, how could you say those things...?_'

"Never mind, Nami, I'm sorry for _irritating_ you and being a _burden_. I won't bother you anymore. I understand and respect your feelings." He started down the wooden steps from the small grove, carefully maneuvering the tangerines so that none would tumble out. "At least enough to leave you alone. If in the most strange event that you should need me, I'll be in the kitchen, where I belong."

His clodding steps faded as Nami kept her back towards him. She looked up silently at her tangerine trees, making the wind blowing through the branches seem more dramatic than it had to be. She saw his tears, there was no doubt about that. A small feeling of guilt and sympathy entered her thoughts, but was quickly mentally stomped on as more important notions of who and who not to trust entered her head. It wasn't the first time. She let her breathing settle, her mind still a hurricane of thoughts and feelings. What had been the breaking point?

"He's just too emotional. He's been dumped and denied before, so nothing is so special about this time." She sat down and leaned her back against a crate half full of tangerines. "He needs to grow up."

She gazed angrily at the sun, getting ready to set.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoa! Okay, so maybe Sanji seems a bit OOC by yelling at Nami….but this story is assuming they've been sailing a while…Sanji's had a bit more time around our raging navigator…and pretty much is madly in love with just her. Get over it. Second part comes soon.


	2. CHAPTER 2: Sorry, no refunds

**"Do not let the sun set on your anger" Ephesians 4:26**

I actually don't like reading the Bible (I prefer the Catechism of the Catholic Church; it makes more sense to me and it's more organized...I can never find anything quickly enough on a certain subject in the Bible). And don't criticize me for not liking to read it. That doesn't make me any less religious or whatever. Plus, I hate reading anything anyway. But this is a good verse. Remember it.

Slamming the storm doors of old people's homes,

---Ken

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**CHAPTER 2: "CAN'T YOU READ THE SIGN? SORRY, NO REFUNDS."**

Sanji stepped down from a small step ladder after placing a crate of tangerines at the top of the food storage closet. They had stocked up five decent-sized crates of the citrus fruits, and Sanji had planned on using them in any aspect of his cooking that he possibly could. At the current moment, he could barely look at them. He only saw Nami's screaming face, contorted with honest rage, every time he glanced at the crates.

"I hate tangerines," he grunted, causing twin jets of smoke to escape from his nostrils. He walked outside to finish his cigarette. Couldn't make it last long enough; he had waited until the last possible second to light it, hoping maybe that he could hold out until they reached a port to purchase more. But his nerves forced him to search out the kitchen for a match. His face felt hot, and, failing to still hold the tears in his eyes, two more salty streams quickly fell down his warm cheeks again. He had silently let tears flow as he ambled around the kitchen, trying to find a match that wasn't used and tossed on the ground by the attention-deficit captain, but had cursed himself for being so weak. It burned a little as a cool breeze blew against his soaked face, but he barely felt it. He felt dazed; he should have been already started on dinner, heck, he should of had it finished; it was already approaching seven o' clock in the evening, too late to get into anything elaborate now. He slowly turned his head towards the sun, low in the western sky, and frowned. Leaning against the wall, he slid down and sat upon the dusty floorboards. He brought his knees up to his chest and rested his crossed arms on top of them. His calm breathing changed as he inhaled in a series of quick, sharp breaths, feeling himself wanting to cry again. He looked upward, trying to focus on the mast and crow's nest, his vision becoming increasingly blurred with fresh tears.

"Oh, Nami, oh Nami Nami Nami, you know I didn't mean all that, all those names I gave you," he moaned quietly, his voice cracking. He had never insulted a female before, _ever_, and now Nami, the object of his affections for the past year, reducing his once-existent side admirations of other girls to zero, had just received the newly-experienced results of a verbal battle in the heat of pugnacious passion. The one he cared for more than anything or anyone he ever had or knew, even more than cooking or Zeff, got to see the worst of him, a side that he had never showed or knew that he even had. What had she gotten so upset about? He couldn't even remember doing anything wrong, for once. He could always find a way to improve his presentation to Nami, either by preparing food better than before, or avoiding phrases that she didn't want to hear from him (not considering the 'goddess compliments'; he wouldn't hold back on those...), but he honestly could not recall anything that stood out as a 'no-no'. He slowly rose to his feet, wiping his eyes. Tossing his cigarette butt casually over the ship, wishing he had more, he returned to his kitchen.

Everything was spotless and organized. Sanji knew where every utensil and appliance was, each bowl and plate and cup. He was very proud of his domain, and liked to show it in this manner. He removed all of the equipment he needed to start preparing a late dinner as the captain and green haired-swordsman walked into the kitchen.

"So you're still (unfortunately) alive?! Geez, and you call cooking your job...Any day now, you citrus slave," Zolo said, sarcastically. "We've been wondering when you would start." Sanji glared at him. Ignoring the swordsman, he walked back to the food closet. "What's going to be for dinner, if you could call it that? Practically a late night snack now."

"It doesn't matter, as long as you get food, right?" Sanji pulled the stool up and climbed to the topmost rung. He reached his long arms up towards the tottering crate that he had just positioned haphazardly on the top shelf of the closet. He grabbed it just as the ship experienced a tremendous jolt, not only causing Luffy and Zolo to crash forward into the table, but causing the stool that Sanji was standing on to shift backwards and out from under him.

"What the hell?!" Zolo yelled.

In the matter of an instant, Sanji lost his grip on the awkward crate and fell in a crumpled heap to the floor, wincing as he landed on his tailbone. He stood up, carefully rubbing his behind, before another slam of force crashed upon the keel of the ship. Sanji only had a moment of perception before the crate that he tried to remove fell forward off of the shelf and down upon him. Luffy and Zolo had removed themselves from the toppled table and benches just as they witnessed the large wooden box slam into the back of Sanji's head, the weight of it causing him to fall forward. Bearing down upon him, the box sandwiched his head between it and the hard wood floor before tumbling off to the side, Sanji's skull forcefully coming into contact with the floor. The shocked captain rushed to his side, hurriedly turning him over, revealing a bloodied face from a broken nose.

"Sanji! Are you okay?!"

The blonde chef moaned as he tried to lift his hand up to his throbbing head. His breathing was extremely shallow, and every exhalation sounded like a weak leak in a gas pipe. He rolled onto his right side, his gnarled-looking hands suspended in the air just above the floorboards, still attempting to hold his head. Zolo looked on in mild surprise as Luffy tried to gain Sanij's attention, to no avail. Sanji only spluttered once and let out two quick wheezes that ended in a disgusting crack of some liquid breaking up in his windpipe. His labored breathing continued as a series of clicking sounds issued from the back of his throat.

"What's that mean?!" Luffy screamed. "Is he dying?! He's ticking! His time's running out!"

"Would you shut up? For once, this is _really_ not good..." Zolo crouched down next to the worried captain, grabbed Sanji's shoulder, and shook him gently (as gently as Zolo COULD...), fearing that he would knock something inside of him loose. "Hey, Sanji, can you hear me?" He didn't like looking at his face. It was worse than viewing his animated and emotional smiling and speeches that he constantly gave Nami. His eyes seemed to flutter beneath half-closed eyelids, only revealing a sliver of the white of his eyes. His mouth hung open, unhinged, the clicking still coming out from it as he exhaled. Zolo had seen the aftermath of many of this man's battles, but never before would he have thought that a bizarre accident with a crate of fruit would reduce the supposed 'iron chef' to this.

"Call for Chopper, Luffy; this isn't going to turn out nicely."

---------

"Nami, you need to come quick."

The navigator's eyes fluttered open in a matter of seconds. She quickly tried to recall when she had fallen asleep as she also tried to make out the shape in front of her eyes. She blinked, frowning.

"What's going on, Zolo? I'm sure you guys can handle whatever it is..."

"No, you don't understand. Something's really wrong with Sanji."

Nami grunted, sneered, and crossed her arms while she closed her eyes again.

"I already _know_ that something's really wrong with Sanji. I'm not doing anything that involves him. He's already made me angry enough today."

Zolo grabbed both of Nami's hands and pulled her upwards, forcing her to stand on her feet. She tried objecting, but Zolo squeezed her shoulders firmly.

"Listen, didn't you feel those two shocks that sent practically everything in this ship flying?!"

"No..." She looked around her, realizing that the crate she was resting against was turned over, the tangerines once inside of it out of sight. They must have rolled away, Nami thought, as Zolo once again broke her concentration.

"You're unbelievable...but this isn't something to dally about! Sanji's really hurt---badly."

"I don't---hurt?" The words had trouble soaking in. First problems with the ship, and now Sanij's hurt? Sanji couldn't REALLY be hurt, could he? He was the protector of the ship and especially her when she needed it: but now he was _hurt_? She didn't even recall the whole incident from earlier. She forgot she had been upset with him. The tone in Zolo's voice was strangely urgent, even concerning Sanji. He wasn't going to... "He's not going to die is he?!"

"I don't---hey, wait!"

Nami pushed Zolo away from her and ran past him, down the stairs, and as fast as she could to the middle of the deck. She didn't know what she was doing. Why do I care, she thought, feeling her lungs tighten as she sprinted around the deck. She looked around quickly, jerking her head back and forth, searching for a sign of where Sanji would be. Zolo followed closely behind her.

"He's in the men's quarters. Chopper's got him."

She wrenched open the small door in the floor to the men's room and clumsily descended the 'ladder' steps attached to the mast. The room was heavy; a lamp in the corner was the only source of light, casting shadows along the floor strewn with laundry: except for near Sanji's area. She immediately raced to her crewmates huddled around a cot newly placed on the floor boards. Chopper was simultaneously checking blood pressure and temperature of someone laying on the cot, out of view as Luffy and Usopp hung over it, murmuring and shaking their heads.

"Get out of my way, you..." Nami shoved the two to the side and looked down upon Sanji. His face was caked with dry blood, accenting the reddish-purple bruising that covered almost his entire face. His lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling, not even flinching as Nami quickly kneeled by his side. "Oh my God...what in the hell happened?"

The reindeer-doctor shook his head. "Zolo and Luffy say it was when the ship jolted---"

"WHY IN THE HELL DON'T I REMEMBER THIS?" Nami screamed, causing Chopper to cower.

"I can't tell you that, I don't know! All I know is that some big crate fell from the pantry and down onto his head. He was smashed against the floor!"

Nami, mouth agape, slowly returned her gaze back to Sanji's beaten up face. He looked awful, no more the (un-admittedly) handsome face that eagerly awaited her approval after breakfast was finished, or who happily offered to rub her shoulders and neck when she had a headache. She wondered at how much his head must have hurt. Chopper offered her a wet cloth to clean his face off, which she did carefully, not wanting to press against his bruises. All of a sudden, he tensed up, as if receiving a painful shot. Chopper tried holding his legs straight.

"Don't let him seize up! Try to hold him down!" Chopper yelled to Nami, still feeling confused. She grabbed his right hand gingerly, not letting the instruction register. She wanted him to say something. She wasn't used to him being so silent around her. A light ignited in his eyes, one of them staring pleadingly up at her, holding her in its pained gaze.

"N-Nami..." he whispered through dry lips, sounding strained. Nami could barely hear him, but knew what he said. She let his hand go and looked on in horror as he squeezed his eyes shut as if in intense pain, opened his mouth as if trying to scream, writhed on the cot for a few brief moments, and finally stopped, motionless and quiet, Chopper sighing as he remained bent over Sanji's long legs.

"I didn't want to give it to him, but it wasn't good for him to keep having spasms like that," said Chopper exasperatedly, holding up an empty syringe. "He had five milder spasms a bit like that before you came down here."

Stunned and silenced, Nami stood up and nodded at the doctor. She had once seen someone having a seizure, but what she just saw somehow came across as more horrific. It was as if Sanji was drifting in and out of himself; she knew he had said her name, and that was all. Was it because she was right there, the first person he saw? Or was he... Nevermind, that was stupid.

"It's best if I am the only one caring for him for the time being," Chopper said. "There's not much even I can do, so you all shouldn't stand around worrying, it's late. I'll update you guys if something happens during the night." Luffy and Usopp looked solemnly at each other before climbing into their hammocks, turning their backs to the room. Nami looked at her feet.

"I want a report as soon as you wake up and are able to assess him, Chopper," she said demandingly but softly. She walked to the kitchen as soon as she arose onto the deck, the night now surrounding the ship wholly on the black ocean. Zolo sat at the small wooden table, picking at one of its splintered corners. He glanced over as Nami walked over to the crate still toppled over on the floor.

"It was...it was..."

"Your own tangerines?" Zolo said dryly, finishing her sentence. "Don't take it to heart; it easily could have been anything else. He was the idiot who put them at the top of the food pantry. Should have just sat them against the wall..."

Nami instantly felt sick to her stomach when she saw the shiny orange orbs through the crate's wooden panels, each one mocking her as they dully reflected the ceiling light. Why couldn't it have been something else, if anything had to fall at all? Why her precious fruit, which Sanji handled as if they were made of gold? She knew that it was only coincidence, and felt foolish for thinking such things, but she couldn't deny an unjustified trace of guilt remaining in her subconscious. Searching to free herself from feeling responsible, she accepted any truth in Zolo's words.

"Yes, he shouldn't have put such a heavy object up that high. It's...it's his own fault. It could have been prevented..."

But she knew why Sanji placed the tangerines so far up from the ground. He often chortled that the dearest of possessions of a goddess should be as close to heaven as possible; of course, he was keeping them out of reach of ever-hungry mouths like Luffy and Zolo, but that was the reason he liked to try and whisper into her ear as she finished up her morning cereal and Sanji finished cleaning up the kitchen. It was only idiotic now. They should have been at a more accessible spot in the large cupboard.

Zolo left the table to look at a spot on the floor. There was still a large smear of blood across some of the floorboards.

"Man, that must have really killed. I want to say that I heard his nose crack, but I can't be for certain..."

Nami winced as she tried to imagine the heavy crate fall into the unsuspecting chef, smashing his head like an ant underfoot. Of course his nose cracked, Nami thought. She shivered a little, but shook it off with a quick nod of her head. "Yes, it must have hurt." She looked once more at the blood before walking to the door. "I'll be going to bed now, goodnight, Zolo."

"Ditto."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

R&R, or it's blitzkrieg all over again.


	3. CHAPTER 3: Make me God, please

Sumimasen...a little bit o' reference to sex in here... Not meant to flare your hormones: I'm all about naturalism folks. It happens; people think of this stuff, worse than what's written here too. Maybe it helps that I think of sex maturely? As in, it's meant to make babies and bond two in marriage? Yeah. Base reasons cure all worries. Usually. Anyways, this is NOT smut...if you want to preserve your good thoughts as you have them for now, I don't blame you. I am all about preserving the sanctity of your brains. However, it's really not bad, and not what the chapter is about. It's only about a paragraph's worth. Just wanting to warn you...

Thanks to all my reviewers, and people who fav'd me and/or the story, and put it on alert! That's very kind of you. BUT YOU HAVE BAD TASTE. My writing is bleh, it needs work. And effort. HAHA! Arigatou!

**For a reviewer, Epiphany---**

**Thanks so much for your medical input, as professional or amateur as it may be. xDDD No offence by that, I just don't know if you study for fun, or if you are really of medical profession! I must say that's what I kinda of figured in my head, about the injuries (not all the technical terms…)…. And really no offence. I just can't trust folks in the world or on the Web anymore, nope….anyway! I really do appreciate it though, and when I first started thinking about the story, I wondered if I should go with a more "true to humanity" approach, considering injury and such (as you've described), or if I should just let it flow to get the fantasy story across. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go with a realistic injury….as in, I'm going to "make up" the consequences of Sanji's injury. If it's not accurate, I'm not going to bother, ONLY on the basis that in the manga/anime of One Piece, there are SEVERAL things wrong with all the brutality that the characters go through (for example, Sanji getting his head slammed by Pearl at Baratie). It's not that I don't care about how things would really play out, I just don't think I could work well with it being more realistic (Sanji's injury). Let me tell you….I usually consult the manga and One Piece drawings to make sure I have directions and room organization/placement right. This is one time I'm not going to bother. XDDDDD**

**But I might write another version….with more realistic injuries….that might work out later….**

**But thanks again! I appreciate someone else looking into the TRUTH of the matter; sometimes it only feels like I do that. HAHA!**

To everyone else: the medical stuff in here I realize is unrealistic. Please disregard that. I'm not bothering at the moment with the technical stuff….I might write something else later with realistic injury. Also disregard the fact that I'm sticking with Oda-ness. They are not very realistic in general, Oda's pirates. In the following chapter, Nami seems as a lenient navigator (as she is really in the manga/anime). I would assume the navigator of a pirate ship would constantly be on alert concerning coordinates, weather changes, etc. It's a tough job, and none of these pirates really are true to the REAL jobs on sea….so don't flame me for being unrealistic. That's just Oda!

Leading the mission trip to Mars,

Ken

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**CHAPTER 3: "MAKE ME GOD, PLEASE."**

Nami woke up early to a ringing alarm clock, as she usually did, starting off the day by checking the coordinates of the ship and making sure that they were still on course. After assessing the progress of their journey, she would usually lay back down for an hour or two, depending on how early the captain decided to start bothering the rest of the crew. Gazing into a newly settled fog, she sighed in disbelief as her memories from the previous night had all resettled into reality, quite unlike the disarrayed dreams she had experienced during sleep. That explained the uncharacteristic silence of the kitchen, its windows dark and covered in dew, no scent of breakfast wafting through a typical morning ocean mist. The sky was gray and overcast, threatening to rain. After she carefully replaced her compass into her jacket pocket, the door to the men's cabin lifted, the little reindeer poking his head through the opening.

"I was just coming to get you," Chopper said, catching sight of the tired navigator.

The room no longer felt oppressive and full of tension, but Nami still felt a sense of foreboding as the skin on her arms prickled. Chopper gently pushed a hoof against Sanji's back, turned to the room as he lay motionless on the cot. The sleeping chef shifted slightly and moaned, from pain or (if he hadn't been hurt, Nami thought, from some lecherous dream) from merely being woken from sleep, Nami couldn't tell. The doctor checked his temperature and turned his head towards Nami. He frowned and sighed.

"Well, his readings on all of this stuff," he motioned to the medical instruments, "blood pressure, temperature, are all fine."

Nami nodded, still expecting worse news by the look on the reindeer's face.

"However, he still hasn't woken up completely and showed me that he is fully conscious of what's going on around him."

"Is he in a coma?" Nami asked, not knowing how to judge Sanji's symptoms.

"I wondered last night, he wasn't responding to any stimuli, but he's at least noticing that I'm poking and prodding him this morning." Chopper patted Sanji on the shoulder. "I fear for the worst though."

Nami looked at the reindeer in confusion. "And what makes you say that?"

"You can't get your head smashed by a crate full of fruit like that and expect no damage. I had trouble _lifting_ the crate myself (and that's not in my present form); I went to the kitchen to look at how it all happened, where it fell from, and Zolo told me what he saw. I'm surprised he even lifted that thing to the top of the pantry!"

Nami silently disagreed. She wasn't surprised at all. Sanji was strangely strong, especially for his build. He looked thin, even emaciated in some of his outfits and his stances; his bent figure at the kitchen counter, chopping onions, or peppers, or some other ingredient, his hair falling forward into his face, reminded her of a leaning sickly willow tree near a creek she had once played at in her youth. She was often amazed at how the thin tree never fell over into the water, similarly at how Sanji continued to amaze her with his Herculean strength, with his skilled kicks and strong hands, forcefully holding off the occasional enemy or even the hungry captain. She liked his hands. She had once allowed him to locate and massage a sore muscle on her back, giving in to his pleading request, and had trouble suppressing several unsuspected moans of complete ecstasy as the chef skillfully kneaded her muscles, somehow knowing exactly where to press his fingers and how much force to apply. Of course, the whole event was unfortunately short-lived when Sanji unceremoniously tried working his way under her arms and to her front, ending with a disgruntled navigator and a chef with a black eye, but Nami found herself continuing to admire his precision and direction of strength, from beating off nuisances to delicately cracking an egg with one hand. Even if he sported a black eye.

She sighed.

"Well, it isn't anything to get upset over," Chopper said, glancing thoughtfully at the navigator. "I'll be taking good care of him."

"I know, it's just that---"

A loud gasp came from the once silent chef on the cot, who now was squirming and trying to roll over on his back. He seemed to be strangely struggling; it should have been easy to gather enough force in his muscles to push himself from laying on his side to on his back, but he couldn't do it. The small doctor ran to over to him, his hooves clattering against the wooden floor.

"What in the world is wrong with you..." Chopper whispered as he helped him onto his back. Nami kneeled down next to the cot as Sanji continued squirming, even when Nami held his hand. "I don't know what's wrong."

"He's---"

Nami was cut short by a loud, piercing cry from Sanji. He shook a little, Nami thought from seizure convulsions, but after recovering from the shock of his own yell, he opened his mouth and cried again. She had never seen the chef look so ruined and sad. He was actually crying and shaking, for whatever reason. His bottom lip jutted out slightly as he started whimpering softly, preparing to shout once more.

"This isn't normal, Chopper..." Nami said softly as she brushed the hair from Sanij's face. The reindeer nodded fiercely, trying to gently shake the chef to some sort of understanding.

"I just don't get it. I need to do some brain tests on him. Nothing else shows anything, and he keeps having spasms, and now this crying."

Nami gently ran the back of her hand and fingers along Sanji's face.

"Shh, it's okay, Sanji, please don't cry..." It was as if she was talking to a child, or a baby. She uncharacteristically (even she noticed) felt like holding him in her arms and lulling him to sleep as if from a motherly instinct, but quickly corrected her thinking by looking along the cot, observing his obviously adult body. He was no baby. But he reminded her of one.

"You need to get him to sleep, Nami. Do anything. I need to set this equipment up."

"But I don't know what to do!"

"He's being a baby, so treat him like one!" The reindeer clodded up the mast-ladder and through the ceiling door to the deck. He hid his equipment in the storage room; no way in Hell was he storing it in the men's quarters. Too many eager hands and prying eyes.

Before she knew exactly what she was doing, Nami struggled to pull Sanji towards her until she could comfortably have his head lay in her lap. She bent over him slightly, stroking his bruised, red, tear-stained cheeks with her fingers.

"Sanji, Sanji, shh, it's alright, it's okay, don't cry anymore."

She would have never done such a thing in regular circumstances, and at first she felt awkward, his head facing up in her lap and his mouth pouting slightly. But as Sanji slowly drifted back to sleep to the rhythmic motion of her fingers alongside his face, she became calmed and relieved. She was closely eyeing one of the small white buttons on the blue oxford he was wearing, first rising and falling rapidly with his scattered breaths, then gently moving in sync with his slowed breathing. She smiled, wondering if Belle-Mere did the same to her when she cried as a baby. What a grand feeling. She hated people whining, complaining, but the thought of Belle-Mere taking two grubby, unknown children into her life, caring for them…it was strangely beautiful.

Nami suddenly had the grand idea of having children of her own. She wondered at the want to care for children she herself had protected and nourished while growing in the womb, smiling at the thought of what it would feel like to rub the round smooth belly of a baby bubbling spit at the mouth, just after a bath, smelling of some sort of lavender or other flowery scent. She felt stupid for thinking, but continued to let her mind wander. She imagined little orange haired girls and boys bouncing around in the house she grew up in---the only house she had lived in enough to appreciate---running through the tangerine groves back at Coco Village, picking ones ripe and not yet ripe, scolding them for it, then laughing.

But no bit of imagination had yet produced a figment of a husband, her complementary male figure. It seemed foreign for her, she hadn't really grown up around a male to use as a role model, save Genzo. But he was mostly for disciplinary purposes, not really like a father. And Arlong qualified for none of it. When it occurred to her, her thoughts raced on their own to produce children spontaneously running from the dreamlike house with blonde hair and curly eye brows, changing to green hair or long noses or rubber-like features before she could concentrate on any of the children especially. She laughed outwardly; she didn't have to marry one of those brutes on the ship. But they had been the only males around her for a long period of time, so it was all she'd known. Then the children ran through her head again, along the sand of the beach, wondering at the ocean and its limits, up and down, left and right, forward and back to north, south, east, and west. Each had blonde or orange hair, and they all ran to her laughing and questioning, big eyes and small fat hands.

"We want to know how it got to be so big!"

"Is it like peoples? It grows?"

Nami laughed and dreamily replied, "'People', honey."

"Where does it end, huh?"

Dream-Nami opened her mouth to reply as a lean yet strong arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close. "It never ends, Nami...like my love for you." Uncontrolled, the beach switched instantly to a dimly lit bedroom, a soft bed underneath her back, and someone over her, straddling her forcefully between their knees as they crushed her beneath their weight. She found herself struggling for breath, the feeling almost realistic, although she was still daydreaming. But it felt good to struggle, to have an almost 'good' pain being put on her. The other person's hands quickly wandered over her stomach and along her sides, underneath her shirt, pleading to travel farther up north, as Nami looked up, still out of breath, into the face of---

"Oh Nami-schwaaaaaaaaan... oh mell---or---ine, you're absolutely worn out and practically defenseless, I'm _so_ sorry...heh heh heh. _Not_. No other words for it except _absolutely amazing_...but if you aren't pregnant after _that_ then---"

"OH GOD, STOP TALKING, SANJI." Nami yelled out, shaking her head violently to get the thoughts out of her head and back into reality. She sat there solidly, her hands on her head holding chunks of taut orange hair, her eyes fixed on the wall across from her, her scalp tense and nerves vibrating underneath her skin.

_'You're a fool, Nami…'_

How had she managed to continue through so many scenes so quickly? Those aren't my thoughts, she kept telling herself. Not my thoughts...not with him, oh no, not with him... She looked down at the now sound-asleep form of Sanji, his head gently resting in her lap. She sneered.

"Jerk, getting into my daydreaming now...I would NEVER marry him, and would NEVER do that with the creep...not with him, not with ANYBODY..." She scowled at herself for allowing her mind to wander into that sort of territory without her say so: she had other work to do, and having babies required sex, which required marriage, which required commitment and love and everything else she couldn't trust or deal with. It was human, and common, she knew.

"But I can't afford to risk things...my work is already cut out for me, _by_ me."

She pushed Sanji back onto the cot, not being any too careful to try and keep him from waking up. Brushing herself off, she ascended to the deck.


	4. CHAPTER 4: Go back to start

This chapter's boring. And there are only two sentences in the entire thing that I like.

OH! And Zolo says a bad word once…but that's just him…

That is all I have to say.

Baking bread in your oven,

Ken

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**CHAPTER 4: GO BACK TO START; CONVERGE AT EVENT HORIZON**

The news of Sanji's condition came as a drone from the doctor, settled in silence over the entire galley, and was (attempted to be) quickly put out of mind by the navigator, who excused herself from the table to check coordinates. The rest of the crew cursed or sat in silence as Chopper sighed heavily, his hooves scraping against the floorboards as he shuffled them. He didn't like trying to stand still around people; especially now, he felt uneasy.

"She can't dismiss it like that," he said definitively. "It's not a choice whether to deal with it or not: he is what he is and that's that. The scans don't lie."

Luffy nodded in silence, Usopp sitting motionless, as Zolo slammed his knees unintentionally into the table, standing up roughly. He shoved it a few inches from its original position, cursing.

--------

Nami didn't cry: ever. She wanted to, many times, not by her will, but she hadn't let out a single whimper or ever let tears fall down her face, except for being saved from Arlong. But that didn't count, she decided; that was happiness, not sadness. Not since Belle-Mere had died had she resorted to crying for emotional release. It was weakness. She vowed never to cry, but now, she almost let herself break that vow.

Chopper said it all as a confident doctor, without emotion, as it was. The chef was reduced to an infantile state. He lost all ability to talk, walk, and restrain excretory actions. He could not remember anything that he had ever done, experienced, wondered at, thought of. His desires and preferences all converged to wherever ideas, dreams, obsessions, feelings, and hopes go when forgotten and lost. His talents were in the memories only of those who knew of and remembered them (unless their memories had converged too). His mind was wiped clean, allowed (or forced, as Nami saw it) to start life all over again: in an adult body.

"I have never seen this happen," the little reindeer said, his antlers not once moving against the background of the galley wall that Nami was staring at when the news was told, "but the tests aren't false. This area shows current thought processes compared with an average adult's, while this shows..."

She didn't want to see the stupid scans. She didn't even know if he'd said those words…was her mind playing tricks again?

The ocean was a deep heavenly azure as the afternoon sun shone over it, the waves climbing over each other to soak up the rays. The weather was cooler now, she wore a thicker jacket. The frost finally set in overnight, her grove insulated in frozen condensation, the leftover tangerines sugared with ice crystals. It had taken Chopper four days to collect data from his machines to compile a decent medical report, and in that time, Sanji was left in the men's quarters with a few I.V. needles stuck into him for nutrients. Only the reindeer kept a close eye on his patient, constantly taking temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate. The other crewmen decided to sleep in the kitchen on blankets until Sanji was removed (he cried out too much). Nami wouldn't let herself go into the stuffy little room; she didn't want to see him. So she'd decided. She had argued with herself that it was because she was still angry with him, which was only covering up her instinct to go and check in on him. That damned motherly instinct she'd felt not that long ago. She had almost gone to help him (at least to help him sleep well) after the several days of forcing herself away from the mast ladder. That was when Chopper finally revealed the fruits of his labor at the brain scan machine.

She _definitely _didn't want to see those stupid scans.

Nami felt someone tugging on her jacket.

"Nami, I know you're struggling to get a grasp on all of this but...you have to accept it as it is." Chopper looked up pleadingly. "We're all in the same boat as you---er---no pun intended..." She continued looking at the ocean, now attempting to busy herself with the compass.

"I don't need to get a grasp on anything. If you want to get to your next destination, you'll have to do your job and take care of him while I do mine and navigate." She stuffed the little instrument back into her pocket. "If this crew were larger, his accident would barely mean anything. The only reason anyone feels any sentimentality towards Sanji is because we are a small group on the ocean. Larger crews wouldn't even bother. What's one man to many?"

"One man can mean a whole lot to many!" the shocked little reindeer cried out, his tiny blue nose pointed up at her. He instantly thought of Dr. Hiruluk and his goal to make everyone's health better, regardless of his medical credibility. He was only one man, but his wish was to touch the hearts of many, all around him. He had touched Chopper's especially. The captain himself had touched Chopper's heart with his strange way of kindness. Now, Nami's words sounded so foreign to him. "Nami, please! What's wrong with you? Sanji's our friend and we need to---"

"I SAID DO YOUR JOB AND I'LL DO MINE." The whites of Nami's knuckles threatened to knock against any skull nearby (in this instance, Chopper's) as she barred her teeth, her eyes trying to stop Chopper's rapidly beating heart with one deadly glance. The reindeer trembled slightly as he backed away, staring frightfully at the floor. He stifled a whimper and lightly clopped back to the mast. He opened the door to the ladder.

"Maybe that's true for a larger ship, Nami, but maybe it's also true that the heart of the crew is inversely proportional to the number of its members," Chopper said defiantly. "Big crews may not care about each other; there's no heart for the next replacement since he's just like the others. Smaller crews need to make up for all those cogs in the machine with care towards the few on board. And you know that Sanji needs you now more than ever. And if he could understand, I know it would mean the most to him if you'd care." He climbed through the door. "Sanji needs you, Nami."

The red hat disappeared as the door shut with a soft thud.

-------

Zolo opened and shut every cupboard in the galley before turning to face Luffy and Usopp at the table, both looking at him with raised eyebrows.

"What are you doing?" Usopp asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I was returning routine to its place."

"What's that mean?"

"It means these doors haven't been opened and closed in days and they need to be." He looked around the room aimlessly, walking slowly towards the door. Luffy smiled awkwardly.

"That's a bit weird, don't you think?

"Listen, I'm used to hearing things, noises, sounds, anything from this kitchen and it hasn't made _any_ noise in days, too long for my comfort, so I'm making the sounds myself." He sneered angrily at his crewmates, feeling his face start to go red. He knew how stupid he sounded, but couldn't help it. He hated when the norm changed into something new. Thinking about it all made him more angry, and he slammed a clenched fist into the galley door, knocking the handle and lock loose and sending the door swinging helplessly on its hinges. "Oh, that's just great...fuckin' stupid door..."

He gruffly stomped through the door frame as the door continued swinging, Usopp shaking his head.

"I gotta fix that..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry it's so short...


	5. CHAPTER 5: Eat the Night

Another boring, yet more odd, chapter. Sorry for the bad language (in the following chapter). I don't talk like this unless it's in my head, I'm alone, and I'm super angry.

That is all.

Sending you back to business school,

Ken

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**CHAPTER 5: EAT THE NIGHT**

Only a day's time went by since Chopper left Nami with a head full of strong words; it only took those few hours for her to realize how much she really enjoyed the chef's obsessive attitude towards her, his goofy smile, and his incredible meals. She was too angry before to pay attention, too defiant to let herself consider Sanji as a friend. To consider _any_ of the crew as friends... She always justified her feelings with facts of the past, with judgments made by a keen intuition. It was because of this that she now felt emotionally distressed and empty, all of her previous philosophies on relationships brutality torn apart. It was as if she was changing personalities in the few moments she had been laying wide awake on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to force tears back into their ducts. She wanted to accept them all as friends, but _something_ stupid and stubborn was holding her back. Some thing, whatever it was---the stupid stubborn thing---had been a part of her reasoning for the past decade of her life. It would kill her to go against herself and be open with the crew, even if it was for her own good.

The same was with crying.

And with loving.

And Sanji.

_'What a bastard…'_

She killed a part of herself as she let herself cry openly, for the first time in years, into her pillow, soaking the cotton cover with tears long wanting to be released. She wished for land, for Coco Village, and her real tangerine grove. For Nojiko and Genzo, then for Belle-Mere, although she was long dead and rotted in her grave on the cliff, she knew. She wondered at what Belle-Mere looked like now, no matter how disgusting it was. She realized that it would seem odd to tell anyone that she thought that way. She couldn't even tell Nojiko those things. She had trouble reconciling with _herself_ about thinking such things. What was her issue?

And that was a problem with making friends, with letting herself be open to others. She thought her actions were odd. Odd because it wasn't how anyone else acted. She ranted, she raved. She complained about anything hat angered her, for the moment, in the past, for the future. Things just _bothered_ her, that was all. But what _was_ her issue? She thought of weird things, like of seeing what Belle-Mere looked like now, or dancing to some delicate background music as she danced in some remote field in some remote part of the world, no one knowing of the event. And she'd continue into normal life without anyone knowing. Or the present thought, of what it would feel like to jump into the ocean at this very moment: what _would_ the crew do? She'd probably die, drown, but she wondered what it would feel like anyway. Thoughts like these plagued her, and they only seemed to be getting worse, as she had recently thought of being a mother; caring for Sanji that one time had done the trick. She'd even gone as far as wondering what Sanji would do if she'd finally kiss the dumb idiot into oblivion and deny it if he tried to tell anyone. That was before the accident.

That thought killed her more than any.

"That damn bastard...fucking stupid moron, I hate him, _I HATE HIM_..." she hissed venomously into her wet pillow. More tears. "He's so stupid, he's a jack-ass, flirting with everyone, flippin' that retarded hair around. Stupid black suit...thinks he's something with his cooking prowess...well, screw him. Making me feel awful then and now. I was fine before I met him...I was _fine_..." She cried into her mattress, her back arching outward as she attempted to coil herself into a ball: anything to try and stop crying. Her sobs became violent bursts of hacking and shuddering; her lungs felt like thin paper bags quickly filled with air, threatening to burst altogether, as she continued bawling. She couldn't stifle herself any other way except to bury her face into the pillow or mattress, her thin orange hair making broken patterns against the dark sheets . She didn't want any of the crew hearing her. She felt stupid, extremely stupid, and couldn't believe she was stooping so low as to cry over the ship's chef.

Was that what she was crying over? She couldn't remember.

But she'd been lying not only to everyone else, including Sanji, but to herself. She looked briefly up at her dark ceiling and admitted it silently. She loved him more than anyone she'd ever known ("Gosh, that sounds cheesy as Hell..."). As soon as he joined the crew, and assisted in her saving at Arlong Park, the small sparks of admiration for him ignited new feelings in her. She relished how he catered to her, as no one had before. She didn't want to admit it (there was that stupid stubborn thing again...); these feelings were new and foreign, thrust upon her in a matter of months. She suppressed the thoughts and feelings like she did with most emotions. She couldn't openly show her feelings like Sanji could,.And she hated him again.

And that was _another_ problem. Was he lying? Was he false? As soon as another female would show up, Nami thought so. He immediately poured his love all over them, as if Nami hadn't existed. She would quietly hold in her disappointment, eating at her with the hidden symptoms of stomach churning and a sore face from frowning. Not that that wasn't hard to hide; she was always seemingly angry at something on the ship. But everything seemed worse when Sanji was on the prowl, as she had described him when he switched into "flirt mode". She secretly despised Vivi's presence on the ship, and even more Robin's. Sanji had been more than willing to accept Robin on the ship, even knowing of her involvement in Baroque Works; had been eager to go save her; had been okay with flirting with her openly, and even preferring her as an older, supposedly more mature, woman over Nami, who was younger. He'd said that, she heard him say it. She couldn't trust he'd forever show her that same doting affection: it'd wear off sooner or later. At least, it always seemed that way. He had once asked her if his flirting made her jealous, and she said no.

"I was. Dammit."

Had she been overreacting? Bothersome: was that _another _problem with her? She probably was failing to see how much he really appreciated her...

BUT NO. She was right, he was the idiot who made her compromise feelings! And stress over things she normally wouldn't have! Stress? HAHA! What was that? What is worry? What will be bothersome?

Thought somehow halted as she rested on her side, staring into black, laying on black, breathing black. The room let no light in from anywhere. She wanted to think of why she somehow became calm, and at the same time of thinking of why, she thought she was thinking nothing. Which was impossible because she wondered at calm so...that meant...

All ceased as she just stopped thinking altogether. Thankfully. Regretfully. Fortunately and unfortunately.

Dreamless sleep was what Nami had been waiting for.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you catch that the disordered flow of my writing could pose as a reflection of Nami's disordered thinking? Maybe you don't find my writing as disordered in this chapter, but I do. So that's my excuse: reflecting the character's thinking...HAHAHAHA! This is how I often think by the way...I have obsessive and paranoia issues. It's kinda bothersome...


	6. CHAPTER 6: Absence

Another stupid boring chapter. This story is stupid and boring actually. Except the beginning and the end. It's like a Harry Potter book! I'll get rich some day.

Sorry it's boring. Hold out for the end. It's my favorite part. :3

Actually, the part with Zolo is kinda funny...disregard my little Sanji Zolo hate-relationship love...I love them as bitter rivals, yet as secret friends. Like, guy friends. Not gay friends. Guy friends.

Shut up, wenches.

Mixing Kool-Aid in your pool,

---Ken

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**CHAPTER 6: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER**

**(--Chapter title is a small tribute to VirgoMaiden's story, of the same name; and I've just liked the phrase always, and semi-stole it; if you mind, I'll change it--)**

The crew was assembled in the galley the following morning. Without breakfast. Breakfast hadn't been served for a while, and everyone secretly missed it. But no one said a word. And no one did anything about it.

Nami had awoken with several pulled muscles and an aching mouth: she had held her jaw in one place throughout the night, involuntarily. Her brain still wasn't thinking, even as she pulled on a clean shirt, clean pants. The thicker jacket. Boots. She thought she had put on socks but realized she had forgotten as her sweaty toes currently rubbed disgustingly against the synthetic material of her boots. She hated that feeling.

She had met up with Usopp and Luffy, who lumbered onto the main deck from the men's quarters. They looked at her with expressionless faces, which bothered her. She usually had no trouble reading them. Chopper had probably told them of her reaction to the news, how she had snapped at the little reindeer. He'd be dinner.

Now, she stared blankly at the swordsman, who stood looking incredulously at all of them, as silent and confused as she was, but not about the same things.

"Why do you people act all out of it when anything happens? Like when we left Alabasta. Man, if I were you guys, I'd have thrown myself overboard whatever ship I was on years ago." He shuffled his fingers through his green hair. "Now, once again, I'll ask: what are we going to do about this?"

"Yeah, I miss meat," Luffy sighed, tracing an invisible chicken leg on the galley table. He had eaten the last piece of meat two days prior.

"That's not what he means Luffy..." Usopp muttered, trying to think clearly. He hadn't been himself without a decent meal either. He was becoming depressed with a tangerine for breakfast, a tangerine for lunch, and some tangerine juice with a tangerine on the side for dinner. There was bread, but he wouldn't touch it: potato bread was something from childhood. He ate potato bread while his mother had been ill, and loved it then, but only then. He let the taste die with his mother.

They wouldn't be able to port for three days' time, and Nami was trying to conserve food in case of an emergency. There were plenty of tangerines to ration out, but even she got bored with tangerines for all meals. The taste was putrid in her mouth now. More putrid, not that they'd indirectly ruined her.

Chopper presently entered the room. "Okay, this is how it has to be. Sanji is basically an infant. I cared for him yesterday, just to monitor his behavior some more. Turns out we'll have to treat him as if he were a baby." Nami thought of babies again. "He needs fed from a bottle, he needs a diaper, and he needs to be lulled to sleep. I really don't know how long this will last, if it even has a chance of breaking at all. He still hasn't opened his eyes for me. I decided that it would be best, since none of us really has experience with babies, if we each take on a responsibility to care for Sanji." The room continued to be silent. "I also think it's best if we all try to choose something that we can do well and with at least some interest to keep this going smoothly. I will bathe him at this point---"

"Ewwwwwwwwwww," Luffy moaned, distorting his face hideously. "You're interested in bathing _Saaaaaaaaaaan_ji?"

"---ONLY because I know you would all react in that way..." Chopper grumbled, a sarcastic look on his face. "I'm a doctor. I at least have the maturity to handle these things. Now, I want each of you to decide on what you want to do."

"I can feed him!"

"Alright, Luffy for feeding...but you have to vow to actually give Sanji all of the food instead of eating it yourself."

"Got it (But I'm still taking bites...)!"

"I need to write this all down...ah yes, here's some paper, a pen...okay, Luffy for feeding."

Usopp rubbed his knuckles. "I can build a musical device to keep him content at night."

"Okay...Usopp has night duty..."

"I can just help throughout the day, watching over him, making the bottles, getting him dressed, and stuff like that," Nami said, wondering if she'd made the right choice; she had been watching over him before when she started daydreaming dangerous thoughts. Chopper wrote on his paper and then stood smiling at Zolo from a lower height.

"We have one more major task. Zolo...?"

"I'm not cleaning any shit off of that damned chef's ass," he growled, crossing his arms. "I don't want anything to do with him. You ever hear of those countries where unfit children are left to the elements?"

Nami kicked him in the shins. "You've got your head far enough up your own ass to appreciate shit, don't you think?" She glared daggers as he rubbed his legs violently, trying to alleviate some of the pain. "Just do the job. And stop making me cuss."

"What do you care, you hate the guy! And you choose what comes out of your mouth, you little--"

Another swift kick to his hands, still trying to remove the pain from the previous kick.

Zolo had never liked Sanji: there was nothing to describe about it, nothing to elaborate or expound upon. From the moment his eyes and ears were forced to meet with the sight and moaning of the chef while at Baratie, his suited reed-like body swooning over the navigator across the table from him, he hated him. Several times he wondered at the best time to kill him. But that only triggered the development of the best ways to torture a man.

_'I would be the master of torture.'_

It wasn't best to do anything quickly. It had to start slow, a bit dull. And finally end with pure irritation and insane pain. He decided that it wouldn't take much brute force to torture someone, which contrasted greatly with his impressions on his opponents. Hadn't he always used force to defeat? But for prisoners, he decided, merely nicking the 'captured' one's joints with the edge of his sword, every few minutes, letting the blood seep, dry, and then break them all open again, adding more and more each time until the whole body was covered in seeping and hardened scabs, all dry and painful against the air. And the person couldn't use his hands or anything to stop the pain or irritation. He'd lay there, be driven mad by his own body's reaction to minor irritations to the top layer of the skin. This was in addition to thumb tacking to the floor. Literal thumb tacking.

But in case they could tolerate that, he'd rip their nails off. Each and every one. Or stick wads of cotton down his prisoner's throat. No choking, just irritation enough to drive a man nuts. He'd probably want to scratch his throat out, he thought, smiling. He wouldn't let his thoughts wander too far from his small plans of torture. He knew that he would scare himself. Never admitting.

_The Demon Man._

He tried to gain solace by sleeping.

Chopper observed Zolo over one diaper changing---Zolo holding his nose with one hand, his eyes closed tightly---and decided that he would have to do it himself. Zolo was assigned to merely stay away.

"Okay, one, I didn't think he actually _had_ a penis..."

"What the _heck_ made you think that?" Chopper growled, wiping urine from the floorboards. Sanji had decided to christen Zolo unceremoniously as the swordsman tried to replace the old diaper with a new one.

"The guy's a frickin' faggot. And two, you expect me to wipe him with ANYTHING? You trying to convert me to his lifestyle? Prince of Sodom and Gomorrah? Forget it." He breathed in deeply to try and settle his current state of mind. He had jumped backwards and bashed his head into the wall in fright after feeling liquid splash against his face, unsuspecting yet fully aware, oddly enough, of what it was. He cussed out every person and thing in the room before being able to talk rationally.

Zolo was allowed more afternoon naps.

Luffy surprisingly assisted with the feeding responsibly. The rest of the crew had stared for over half an hour as the captain successfully, first try, fed Sanji through a bottle, no problems. Zolo left the room, shaking his head, as Usopp laughed.

"Unbelievable, how you can learn to take up some duties just by having this situation come along!" he chuckled, rubbing his long nose. "One would think you were a pro at this!"

"You'd think other things on this journey would have made him learn responsibility sooner..." Nami grumbled, taking the empty bottle.

Luffy smiled, propping Sanji up to burp him. "Sanji's my crew member, and I'm gonna help him! Burp, Sanji!" He slammed his fist into the chef's back, causing Nami to jump up and immediately punch Luffy in the face, sending him flying backwards. The navigator took Sanji into her arms as he started to whimper.

"You can't hit him like that! He's like a baby! And you can't let his head droop either."

"He's still strong ol' Sanji, Nami," Usopp said, forehead creased with raised eyebrows.

"No, he's not. He's very sensitive now. We have to be careful with him." She gently began patting his back, letting Sanji lay heavily against her body; he was enormous in comparison with her petite figure. Usopp shrugged and left for the deck, Luffy following with a loud raspberry towards Nami.

"Meanie!"

Nami smiled, allowing herself to enjoy the chef's strong arms draped around her shoulders, down her back, even if they weren't held there purposefully by Sanji himself. He burped softly. "Good job, that's good. Now you shouldn't have an upset stomach." She hugged him close, scratching his back. "You're so sweet when you aren't prancing around, blurting out things. I almost like you better this way..."

'_But I __kinda__ miss talking to __you,__ too, I'll admit that much..._'

She rested him gently against the cot, with newly cleaned sheets, and stroked his face. His bruises were yellowing, but had lightened up drastically with the medicine Chopper had given him.

"I just wish you'd open your eyes a bit. And I miss your smile."

Chopper entered the room and waddled over.

"Doing well?"

"Yes. He ate, and burped." Nami said, standing up, starting to leave.

"Good, good. Well, I might as well give him his bath now, it's getting late."

Nodding, she left the room.

Nights on the ship had come sooner and sooner as the sun set earlier. November weather threatened to bring some snow their way, but always dispersed. Nami smiled, gazing out at the black ocean. She could barely make out the white crests of the waves. The ocean was definitely a different place at night.

She buried her nose into her shoulder, trying to get Sanji's scent into her nostrils. He always smelled so good, even just after a bath. Did all men have a specific odor, all their own?

Another thing she took for granted.


	7. CHAPTER 7: See

**I'M STILL ALIVE!**

**This chapter was already on here, but I updated it a bit…. I'll have a new chapter up soon.**

**See you soon!**

**-Kelsey**

* * *

**Chapter 7: See**

"You know what? Why don't you just put that damn chef somewhere else then?"

Zolo stomped through the men's quarters, shifting around anything so as not to get on Nami's bad side. He had already dumped over two crates of clean laundry and a container full of liquid food nutrients.

"Why don't _you_ just help by getting away, you bulky stupid swordsman?" Nami retorted, mopping up the mess. "You don't want to help with anything else, so-"

"That's women's work." He heavily stepped up the ladder, eyeing Nami briefly and smiling at her outraged countenance.

Along with keeping up on her navigating duties, Nami helped Chopper throughout the next few days with random tasks, keeping tabs on Sanji's behavior, getting towels, diapers, and anything else. She came up with a schedule to continue her duties properly, trying to best organize her time to monitor Sanji and the ship as well. After three days' time, she had already assumed all of her fellow members' tasks, realizing that Sanji had better luck at living in his state with someone like Arlong than in the care of unknowingly abusive Luffy, panicking Usopp, and tirading Zolo.

"How was I supposed to know I'd pick up radio waves so strongly?" Usopp screeched at a highly perturbed Nami one evening. He had finally constructed a make-shift radio and turned it on in Sanji's room, instantly blasting out the ear drums of any organism within a fifty mile radius. Saying that the marksman panicked was a definite understatement, as he had destroyed the whole room trying to actually turn the device off, in the process stepping on Sanji and causing a whole shelf of blankets and towels to fall over on him.

"You forgot to put on a _volume_ dial, you nimrod! It's not how well the waves came through, it's the _volume_!" Nami chucked the device in Usopp's direction, startling him further. It had taken over an hour to calm Sanji down and make sure he hadn't suffocated any, under the pile of blankets. "As of this moment, none of you are to step foot in that room. Me and Chopper _ONLY_!"

No one dared to disobey.

Chopper noticed Nami's swift change in demeanor as she cared for the infantile chef, her solid intentions to always be on-time when he would wake up from naps (she adapted his schedule to hers), the way she held him when he ate, the smooth humming she made when getting him to sleep. She developed her naturally-given motherly instinct quickly, and found herself enjoying taking up the care of Sanji.

"Nami?" The orange-haired girl turned her head towards the little reindeer, her arms carefully holding Sanji in place before pulling a clean shirt over his head. "You sure have changed a bit, since I talked to you that day."

Nami smiled. "I know, I noticed too. I kinda...feel a bit silly, for saying all that about helping with Sanji. I just was really upset, I guess, that's all. I mean, it was a big change, without him being around as normal, and then having to take care of him. It's a bit different, caring for a baby who's older than you." Chopper grinned. "I know. It's okay. I thought the same. I just kept my thoughts to myself."

"Better than me blurting them out all of the time."

"But you're honest, Nami. And forthright." He patted her head. "That's why Sanji likes you so much."

"Oh, shut up!" Nami scrunched her nose and finished dressing Sanji. "Well, he's beyond liking anyone now."

"Not true. He behaves best for you."

"That's just because I'm a woman, and, according to Zolo, women can only properly take care of babies..."

"Well, Zolo can't say much, since he isn't helping anyway. But there's truth to that. You have that nurturing flair about you. Of course, in general, you're a great help, at any rate." He busied himself with collecting dirty laundry. "I think we should move him into your room now. It might be more efficient."

"Yeah, I had thought about that."

"Since you already lull him to sleep anyway, and assist when he cries. You monitor him the most, so it'd be easier. And the guys need their room back."

Nami nodded, combing Sanji's hair carefully. As she combed through his long bangs, she was startled by movement on his face. She stopped, gazing down incredulously as Sanji's right eye stared back up at her, wide open as it normally had been. Nami shrieked, forcing Chopper to drop the laundry pile and run to her aid, as he had expected something awful. Instead, he smiled.

"Well, finally! Some sign of life!"

Nami clapped her hands twice and laughed. The chef's eyelids kept fluttering, trying to remain open against the light in the room.

"Oh, Sanji, finally, hey, can you see me? Do you know who I am? Remember? It's Nami, it's me, Nami!" She fluffed his hair and stroked his face, trying to get him to smile. He only looked at her contently, until Chopper raised a hoof in front of his eye. The doctor moved his arm slowly, watching Sanij's eye movement following him.

"This is progress, indeed, it's wonderful! I feared that he might have sight loss, but he's following my hoof fine. This is a big step forward. He might have hope yet."

"Oh, Sanji, and just in time! I'm taking you into town today, okay? You get to see all the funky people and all the neat things!" Grown-Chopper picked up Sanji, allowing Nami to climb to the deck herself, still smiling. He followed, the chef hanging over his shoulder.

"Seems like good weather for today," Nami said, taking a few glances at the sky. She noted the ship's progress towards an island, the first land they had seen in days, and looked around for Zolo. She found him napping against the starboard rail. "Hey, Zolo. We're almost to port. Can you drop the anchor?"

A grunt and a swift nod were all she needed.

Gangplank against pier and Luffy, Usopp, and Zolo were already off the ship and into the small foreign town. Nami and Chopper both shook their heads, agreeing that it was best they leave first. Chopper arranged a harness made of tightly twisted and knotted sheets and towels, big enough for Sanji to fit in. He pulled it on, hoisting Sanji onto his back. Nami pushed blankets along his sides, making sure he wouldn't slide over, as well as placing a pillow on Chopper's back so Sanji could lay his head forward.

"You don't think that anyone will try to sail off with our ship, do you?" Nami asked, glancing warily at the pier.

"We'd notice; the town is barely ten yards from the dock. Plus, that anchor needs about twenty regular men to raise."

"True…"

"And we're off."

The town was smaller then Roguetown, but it seemed just as busy. Chopper looked around, a bit apprehensive.

"Different than Drum Island, and especially Alabasta...all these people look so different."

Nami glanced around. "Eh, you should _see_ all the weird people around the world. Roguetown? Huge place, full of anyone you could think of. And anyone you don't _want_ to think of either..." She looked over at Sanji and smiled. "Now then, we should restock on plenty of food. I'm sure that's the first thing the others went to get."

They completed their grocery shopping with ease, Nami trying to remember all of the common ingredients Sanji would use. Normally, she would have loved to window shop, and maybe try some things on, but she allowed Chopper to go collect medicinal items while she sat with Sanji on a small bench outside the store. His back lay against the food bags, so he could see Nami with ease.

"Oh, Sanji, I'm so glad you finally opened your eyes. Can't you tell who I am at all? Just a smile? Come on, for me? For Nami-san? Come on, come on." She kept cooing, shaking his hands with hers. His eyebrows creased together as if he were contemplating something, Nami trying all the harder. "Come on, Sanji, I know you can do it!"

"Come on, Sanji, have a beer!" Zolo walked up to the both of them and shoved a bottle of grog into Nami's hands. "There. Give him that, and he'll come to his senses."

Nami busted the bottle upside Zolo's green head, freshly saturated with alcohol. "You idiot! You can't give him that! He's just a baby!"

"He's NOT a baby! Maybe his _mentality _is infantile, but his _body_ is not. His system can handle alcohol, trust me. I've seen him down three bottles of wine in one sitting."

"NOT in THIS state."

"Nami, you doing okay?" Chopper exited the store with a small bag in hand. "How's he doing?"

"Fine and fine. Unless Mr. Swords-a-plenty here tries to give Sanji grog!" She sighed. "Well, let's take him back first, I'll stay with him. Then you can go collect the _rest_ of the idiot circus..." She pointed at Zolo and followed Chopper to the ship.

Evening became night quickly, the temperature dropping just as fast. Nami mourned her tangerine grove every time they went through parts of the ocean that succumbed to winter weather, even though they somehow always lived through it. But enough about that. There was a crew to feed, and with their chef out of commission, she assumed his duties as well.

Nami prepared a dinner, closely following one of Sanji's recipes. It tasted fine, but hardly was the presentation that the chef would have made.

"Looks like shit," Zolo spat. Nami glared at him, her eyes becoming dark.

"You can _eat_ shit, if you prefer...and what do you care? You never appreciated Sanji's meals."

"It tastes fine, Nami," Chopper said smiling. Usopp and Luffy had already piled half of their plates into their mouths, throats clogged with food. They coughed violently, various wet chunks showering on top of Zolo.

"You dumb asses! I'll kill you both!"

"Tayshtes like chicken."

"Hell yah! Like Shanji'sh!"

Nami sighed and took her dinner and Sanji's to the men's quarters.

"No, no, open up. Come on, Sanji, I want you to try and eat this."

Hoping that Sanji was improving, Nami decided to try feeding him puree and other smooth liquidy foods with a spoon. He just stared at her, an orange oatmeal-tangerine mush coating his closed lips. Defeated, she sat the bowl and spoon down at her side.

"Well, I guess you can't learn everything in a day, can you?" She took his hands in hers again, clapping them together. "But I want you to smile! You can smile, I know you can. I can tell you just want to! Smile for me, Sanji, sm-!" A wide grin stretched across Sanji's face, oatmeal mush accompanying it. Nami squealed in delight. "Oh, Sanji! You smiled! This is so cool! I'm so happy! I-!"

An organic, pungent odor reached her nose, wiping her own smile from her face.

"You-have-_gas_? It was just a fart? You were happy about releasing a _fart_, _GAS_?" Her head hung forward in temporary despair. "Well, I suppose that's fair enough. I wouldn't want to smile for no reason at all, either. Now you probably need a diaper change." She sat there a moment, Sanji staring at her. "I haven't changed you before myself...but..." She glanced over at the things she had at her disposal: Sanji's dresser, cot, diapers. "I might as well learn how to do this myself, right?"

She lay Sanji on his back, easily taking his pants off. It was no longer strange to see him in a diaper, although she still wanted to laugh; but she didn't know how to react, changing it for him. She'd never seen a naked man before: ever.

"Well, Nami, there's always a first. I suppose you can't go through life not seeing some things..." She closed her eyes and took the pin from the white cloth, pulling it forward. "I'm sure it's not that bad. I mean, how bad could it be? All right, on three: one, two, three-"

* * *

"Did you hear something?"

"No."

"It sounded like someone screamed." Chopper put his hoof to his ear.

"Only other person on the ship is Nami. And she's with that idiot." Zolo scoffed. "Maybe he died. Here's hoping."

"I think it's-_would you shut up?_-I think she's calling my name." The little reindeer stood up and ran to the galley door. "Be right back."

Luffy giggled.

"Nami's dying, by the sounds of it."

"Well, I tried taking care of that shitty cook and _I_ almost died. But it's just because it's _him_. So who knows. She probably doesn't like crap or something. Like the woman hasn't seen shit before..."

All of a sudden, the navigator burst through the galley door, her face livid. Chopper trailed closely behind.

"Never….never again…."

"But Nami, it's—"

"_No_. I'm never doing that again. I NEVER want to see that _again_." She sat down at the table heavily, slamming her crossed arms onto the table's surface. She buried her face into her arms and yelled, her muffled voice loud enough for the rest of the crew to hear. "I hate this!"

"Well, not much anyone else can do either," Zolo huffed, shrugging. "I say we throw him overboard. Who gives a fu—"

It only took one glare to drive him and the others from the small kitchen, Nami's ferocity branding fear into all around her. With the place quiet, she finally had some time to herself. Was she really going to end up being Sanji's only caregiver?

"I can't do this… I just can _not_ do this. Maybe we should drop him off somewhere, find a hospital…" The thought of actually dumping him off at some no-cost facility made her insides squirm. She wasn't sure if it was her morality or her sentimentality that got the better of her. It was almost as if she already missed him, yet he wasn't going anywhere soon. Perhaps it was just… "I really miss his stupid, _stupid_ antics."

She stared at the wall, finding pictures in the wood grain of the panels, attempting to preserve her sanity.

END.


End file.
